Lucas

by Kevin Brooks

  ‘Ah …’ she said, wiggling her eyebrows. ‘Come this way, my pretty. A surprise awaits thee …’

  The surprise was having to spend the rest of the afternoon in a pub called The Cavern at the other end of the bridge with two of the lamest young men I’ve ever come across. They were waiting for us in a balcony garden at the rear of the pub, sitting at a plastic table in the shade of a plastic umbrella. Traffic groaned up and down the dualcarriageway below, almost drowning out the sound of the jukebox, and a stale odour of beer and cigarette smoke drifted out from the dim interior of the bar. Bill introduced the boys as Trevor and Malc.

  ‘They’re starting at the sixth-form college next year,’ she explained proudly, crossing her legs and pouting as she sat down next to the one called Trevor. He was thin, with tinted glasses and a short-sleeved button-down shirt. The other one was even thinner, in white shorts and a beige-and-white-striped polo shirt. He had a face like a lizard.

  ‘Hi, Kay,’ he said. ‘What are you drinking?’

  I can hardly bear to describe the rest of the afternoon. In short, it was awful. A daze of giggling, drinking, grinning, smoking, bragging about cars, crappy jokes and beer-mat tricks, crisps, traffic fumes, flies, spiked drinks, sly looks and suggestions, and then, as the drinks took hold, red-faced slurs and scratches and winks, burps and farts, dirty stares, shuffling chairs and loose hands, with Bill flashing her knickers around like a drunk old granny at Christmas, and Trevor pawing her under the table, and Malc just sitting there like a sick little boy after I’d kicked him in the knee for trying to stick his damn tongue in my ear.

  When Bill and Trevor sloped off to a corner of the balcony to get some more groping in, I just couldn’t stand it any more. I took myself off to the Ladies, locked myself in a cubicle, and just sat there, praying for the day to end.

  I didn’t have that much to drink, but it wasn’t possible to sit there all afternoon without drinking something, if only to dull the pain. And I’m sure Talcy Malcy slipped a few vodkas into my cider at the bar. And I hadn’t eaten much. And I was tired. And we’d been sitting out in the sun all afternoon … So, all in all, by the time we left the pub I have to admit I was pretty drunk. I don’t quite remember walking back to the car park, but somewhere along the way we lost Trevor and Malcolm and were re-united with Angel and Robbie. They were with a man I’d seen around the island called Lee Brendell. I didn’t know where they’d been, or what he was doing with them, and I didn’t really care. I was just glad to get in the back of the car and sit back as Robbie drove out of the car park, swung across the roundabout and headed out of town.

  After fiddling around with a pile of shopping bags and re-doing her lipstick, Angel swivelled around in her seat and lit a cigarette. She couldn’t stop grinning at Bill, who was slopped in the corner with her eyes half-closed and an unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth. Lee Brendell had squeezed in the back and was sitting sullenly between me and Bill with his legs splayed wide and his eyes blank. Robbie, meanwhile, had obviously taken something. His bug eyes were shining like black saucers and he couldn’t stop talking and waving his hands about. He was driving even crazier than before. Cutting up cars, swerving all over the place, racing the engine … it was scary.

  I opened the window to let some air in.

  ‘Want some sounds, Bren?’ Robbie shouted, jerking his head around. ‘Eh? What d’you want? Bit o’ boom? You want some boo-oom!’

  Brendell just looked at him. He was a big man, in his late twenties or early thirties, dressed in a faded grey T-shirt and dusty jeans, with a raw-looking face and large, weathered hands which he held flat on his knees. All I really knew about him was that he lived on a houseboat on the west of the island and that he wasn’t a man to be messed with. He smelled of chemicals and sweat.

  Robbie turned and grinned at him again. ‘Say what? Wanna smoke? Whooo! Smokeen Joanna! You want some boom-boom? Ange’ll get—’

  ‘Just drive the car,’ Brendell said quietly.

  ‘Okey dokey, Bren,’ Robbie replied happily. ‘Okey bloody dokey.’

  The outskirts of town blurred past and before I knew it we were heading out along the country lanes back to the island. Although I was still feeling a bit whoozy, the air rushing in through the open window was beginning to clear my head and I was starting to feel a little better.

  Bill, though – well, Bill was suffering. Slumped against the window, with her head in her hands and her skirt all rucked up and mascara smudged around her eyes, she looked a complete mess. I didn’t feel much sympathy for her. In fact, I didn’t feel any. At that moment, I hated her guts.

  But still … she was my best friend. I couldn’t just leave her, could I?

  I leaned across Brendell and took hold of her hand. ‘Bill? Bill, are you all right?’

  ‘Nn nuh,’ she said, slapping at my hand. ‘Fug ‘em, bassa …’

  ‘Come on, Bill, it’s me, Cait.’

  ‘Lemme ‘lone, gwan …’

  Brendell turned his head and looked at me, his face utterly devoid of expression. He didn’t say anything, didn’t move a muscle, just stared at me like I was something in a cage, then slowly looked away. I pulled Bill’s skirt down as far it would go, which wasn’t far, then shuffled back to my side of the car.

  Angel had resumed her bum-in-the-air position and was watching me with a mocking gleam in her eyes. With Brendell seemingly non-existent, Bill semi-conscious, and Robbie lost in a daze of speeding cars, Angel and I were as good as alone. We both knew it. She bent a stick of gum into her mouth and winked at me.

  ‘Welcome to the world, darling,’ she said. When I didn’t answer she gave me a long hard stare, making a big deal of chewing her gum, and then she snapped the gum and sneered, ‘You like to think you’re something special, don’t you? Something special. Clean and white, Caity McCann … beach baby … little Caity McCann … isn’t that what he calls you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who, she says … shit – how many are there?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Course you don’t – you don’t know squat, do you? You just walk on the beach with your dog, looking at the sky …’ She leaned towards me and her voice took on a vicious tone. ‘Listen, girl,’ she hissed, ‘just keep your hands off my boy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t touch what you can’t handle, all right?’

  I shook my head. She was crazy. What boy? Who the hell was she talking about? Malcolm? Talcy Malcy? Simon? Did she mean Simon …? No, she wouldn’t look twice at Simon. Then it struck me – little Caity McCann. That’s what Jamie Tait had called me on the beach. Well, if it isn’t little Caity McCann … Was that who she meant? Jamie Tait? But that was ridiculous. Angel had nothing to do with him. She wasn’t his girlfriend. Sara Toms was his girlfriend – his fiancée, in fact. But then, I thought, it’s not as if Jamie’s likely to be the most faithful partner in the world is it? But even so – Angel Dean? With Jamie? Surely not … And anyway, even if she is talking about Jamie, how does she know what happened? He must have told her, he must have lied to her …

  A terrible groan interrupted my thoughts. I looked over and saw Bill clutching a hand to her mouth, her face as pale as a sheet.

  ‘Pull over, Robbie,’ Angel said. ‘The little bitch is gonna throw up.’

  Robbie swore and slid the car to a stop. ‘Get her out! Quick, get her out! I only had it cleaned this morning.’

  Bill started gagging, big lurching humps that started in her belly and snaked up into her throat. Angel just sat there, laughing. She wasn’t going to lift a finger. And Brendell couldn’t give a damn. So while Robbie was having a mental breakdown, swearing and spluttering and tugging at his door, trying to unlock it, I opened my door and hurried round to the other side. I got Bill out and helped her onto the verge. After a couple of steps her legs gave way and she sank to her knees and threw up in the grass. From the car I could hear Angel cheering and clapping, ‘Yeah! Go on, girl, let i
t all out! Ha ha!’

  This is it, I thought, this is it. It can’t get any worse. I looked at Bill, coughing and retching in the grass, and Robbie, who’d finally got his door open and was now walking up and down sucking hard on a cigarette, mumbling to himself and manically clicking his fingers, and I looked at Angel, leering out of the car window, a crazy girl who just minutes ago had warned me to keep my hands off a man who less than twenty-four hours ago had virtually assaulted me …

  I couldn’t believe what was happening.

  How did I get here?

  What was I doing here?

  I looked around and suddenly realised where we were. The Stand. We were parked at the side of the road, about a quarter of the way across. It was almost too much to bear. All this – this car, these people, the sound of Bill gagging herself to death – all this muck and small-time horror didn’t belong here … not here.

  I went over and stood by the railings, trying to control myself, trying to distance myself from the dirt. The tide was in, just about to turn. It was as high as it gets without flooding. The clear silver water was almost motionless, like a mirror, just a gentle lapping against the reeds and a hazy blue swirl way out in the middle of the estuary. It was beautiful. For a few seconds I forgot about everything else, it all just faded into the background as I stared into the calming silence of the water.

  And then, with a guttural oath and a splash, the silence was shattered.

  ‘Yay! Got ‘im!’

  I looked across and saw Robbie leaning over the railings hurling rocks at something on the bank, flinging them with all his strength, his face screwed up into a mask of spite.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I yelled.

  He ignored me and bent down to dig out more stones from the verge. ‘Hey, Ange,’ he shouted. ‘Come here, see this.’

  Angel got out of the car and sashayed over to the railings, arriving at the same time as me.

  ‘Look,’ said Robbie, heaving another rock. ‘Shit! There he goes, bastard.’

  I looked over, expecting to see an injured bird or something, but it wasn’t a bird – it was a boy. The Boy, the boy in green. He was about twenty metres down river, struggling up the bank with a fishing cane in one hand and his canvas bag in the other. The hair on the back of his head was matted with blood where a stone had found its target.

  ‘Oh, God,’ I whispered.

  Angel had climbed up on the railings and was urging her brother on. ‘Get him, Rob, go on, he’s getting away. Get him!’

  As Robbie grinned and went to launch another rock, I grabbed his arm and pulled him off balance. He swung out and shoved me away, then fired the stone with sickening force into the Boy’s back. The Boy stumbled again and half-slipped down the bank, then steadied himself and leapt across a narrow gully before melting into a tangle of tall reeds. Just as he was disappearing from view he glanced over his shoulder and looked at us. From someone in his position I would have expected a look of fear, or anger, pain, or even bewilderment, but his face showed nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. It was the emotionless look of an animal, a look of pure instinct.

  A look that had seen me.

  ‘Dirty gyppos,’ Robbie spat, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Gyppos, travellers – hey, what’s your bloody game, anyway? Whose side are you on?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Angel, coming up beside me. ‘Whose side are you on, baby?’

  I could hardly speak. ‘Side?’ I spluttered. ‘Gyppos? What’s the matter with you? You’re all mad.’

  ‘He another one, then, is he?’ Angel smirked. ‘Christ, you put it around, girl. Students, weirdos, rich kids, gyp-pos … can’t you say no to anything?’

  ‘Don’t forget the dawg,’ Robbie snorted.

  A surge of anger welled up inside me. I saw their mocking faces, teeth, lips, burning eyes, and the air around them tainted with cruelty, and it hurt so much I wanted to scream. But I knew it was pointless. It would always be the same. There was nothing I could do to change it. So I just turned around and started walking.

  ‘Say hello to Big Dom,’ Angel called out after me. ‘Tell him Angel sends her love … d’you hear me? Little Angel sends her lurve …’ Her laughing voice drifted away on the breeze.

  Bill was sitting on the verge with her head between her knees, still groaning. As I passed by she looked up at me through bleary eyes. ‘Cait? Wass goin’ on? Wass ‘iss? Where y’goin’?’

  I walked past without saying anything and headed home.

  The thing that upset me most about the whole day wasn’t anything to do with Bill, it wasn’t her stupidity or the pub or the idiot boys, it wasn’t even the spiteful rantings of Angel and Robbie. No, what upset me most was imagining what the Boy must think of me. As I walked the long walk home, fighting back the tears, mumbling useless curses to myself, staggering every now and then from the last remaining effects of the drink, a single ugly thought kept nagging away in my mind: God, what must he think I am? A tarty little brat with noxious friends who vomit in public and throw rocks at strangers … a thoughtless bigot … just another teenage fool …

  I know it sounds incredibly arrogant and selfish of me, but I just couldn’t help it. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. I imagined the Boy sitting quietly in a little hideaway somewhere, dabbing gently at his cut head, visualising me and the others laughing and pelting him with rocks. I felt so ashamed.

  Of course, I was concerned for him, as well. That goes without saying. A terrible sickening feeling swirled in the pit of my stomach, a hollow rage that I hadn’t felt since I’d tried to stop a bunch of kids torturing a cat a couple of years ago. It was bonfire night. They’d tied a rocket to the cat’s tail and the poor thing was running around screaming in pain and panic and the kids were all laughing like lunatics. I tried to help, but the cat ran off and disappeared into some wasteground and the kids started laughing at me. I couldn’t do anything. There were too many of them. I felt so helpless … and that’s how I felt now. Helpless. Sickened. I was worried about the Boy. I wanted him to be all right, I wanted him …

  The truth is, I wanted him to know that I cared.

  Dad’s always telling me not to worry what other people think of me, or what I think they think of me. ‘Just be yourself,’ he says. ‘If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough.’ I know he’s right, but sometimes it’s easier said than done. With people like Angel and Robbie, I can just about manage it. I can say to myself – it doesn’t matter what they think, their opinions are worthless. Let them think what they like – what do I care? I can say that to myself. It doesn’t always work, but at least I can say it. But when it comes to people whose opinions I value – well, that’s different. That’s when it’s hard. When someone you respect, or admire, or love, thinks badly of you, then it’s not good enough to just be yourself. Because if you’re being yourself and they still think badly of you, then either they’re wrong, or you are.

  The way I saw it, the Boy was bound to think badly of me, but he was wrong. Or, at least, he was mistaken. It wasn’t his fault he was wrong. If anything, it was mine. But he was still wrong. That was straightforward enough. What I couldn’t understand was why it seemed to matter to me. I didn’t know the first thing about him. Why should I care what he thought of me? Why should I value his opinion? Did I respect him? How could I? Admire him? For what? I didn’t love him … I didn’t even know him – so why did I care what he thought of me?

  I thought about it all the way home, but I still couldn’t work it out. My head hurt. My mouth was dry. I was too hot to think. In the end I just gave up.

  After a cold shower and a change of clothes and a couple of cups of strong black coffee, I still felt lousy. It was only early evening, about eight o’clock, but I felt as if I’d been up for days. My head was all muzzy and I felt exhausted. I didn’t want to go to bed, though. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, either. And the idea of watching Saturday night television was too depressing t
o think about. Of course, what I really wanted to do was go for a walk on the beach. I knew it was the only place that would get rid of all the crap in my head, but I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready to face it yet. The memory of Jamie Tait was still too fresh in my mind. The trouble was, the longer I avoided the beach, the more tainted it would become, and the more tainted it became, the harder the memory would be to overcome. The beach didn’t deserve that, and neither did I.

  But it was hard. Especially after what had happened that afternoon. Too hard. And as I sat in the kitchen looking out of the window, I knew I wasn’t going to make it that night.

  I was still sitting there half asleep when Dominic came back.

  ‘Hey, stranger,’ he said, breezing into the kitchen. ‘What are you doing sitting in the dark?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, rubbing sleep from my eyes. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘I don’t know, eleven-thirty, twelve – where’s Dad?’

  ‘Working.’

  ‘Makes a change.’ He went over to the fridge and helped himself to a can of beer, popped it open and joined me at the table. ‘You been out?’ he asked, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘No, not really—’

  ‘I thought you were meeting Bill?’

  ‘We just went into town …’

  He grinned. ‘Living it up?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  I watched him as he drank from the can. I hadn’t really seen him since he’d got back, I hadn’t had a chance to see what he looked like. Now, in the semi-dark of the midnight kitchen, I could see that he resembled someone who used to be my brother. The same quietly handsome face, the same delicate mouth and wood-brown eyes, the same mischievous energy … only now it was all pinched and dull, the skin toneless and flat as if sealed beneath a sheet of clingfilm.

  He drank some more beer and tapped ash into the ashtray. ‘Do you know what this reminds me of?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That scene in The Catcher in the Rye, the one where Holden creeps back into his parents’ house to see his kid sister – what’s her name?’